400W NorthQ NQ-4001EXT-USB PSU any good?

[Nobull]

Seen this 400W NorthQ PSU on Scan's today only for £26! Its usually £37. Ignore the fact it has a USB to charge your mp3 player for a second. Is this power supply any good? It says 80% efficiency and I know NorthQ are a fairly reputed brand. Would it match up to say the Silverpower 400W on Scan at £35 or the Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W?

There's a review of it here which seems to rate it as a decent, reliable PSU but I don't understand the graphs etc. cos I have little intimate knowledge of what is comparatively good.

For anyone who read the thread on the Video Editing PC from the last day or 2, would this PSU do the job, reliably and save me ~£10?

Cheers in advance

[Nobull]

No-one got an opinion on this either way? I'm considering just going for it as its a reputable brand, 80% efficiency and £10 cheaper than the silverpower 400W. Little confirmation would be great tho

[Sputnik]

It seems a fair price but, I've no idea how good these are.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would honestly tell your mate to find the few quid more for a decent PSU and one which has good efficiency too. The PSU is the cornerstone of your PC and it is NOT a good component to skimp and it has to last years though many potential upgrades.

£10 to £20 extra spent now will be money saved a few years down the line if a cheaper PSU dies and has to be replaced. If it takes out any components the cost will only be higher!! The PC will be doing hardcore video editing so it needs a PSU which will comfortably be able to run the computer at potentially 100% power draw for hours at a time.

[GSte]

Sounds okay from the review, if a little noisy. I know that their high-end PSUs are supposed to be decent after reading johnnyguru's reviews of them..... is this to go in the rig in "my system"?

[Nobull]

I take your point Cat-the-5th. I know PSU is not worth scrimping on, at the same time I just thought I'd spotted a PSU as good as the 1 u'd recommended just at a lower price (because its today only) so I thought I'd try and get some opinions. Do you think the silverpower 400w is the right choice? Or would you go a little higher than that as well considering the PC will be video editing? Are you saying you think this PSU is no good, in spite of what the review says?

@GSTe the rig is unconfirmed as yet but look here for an idea

Thanks for the input anyway guys.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I dunno to be honest. I think at times it is too easy to think nowadays that we need uber sized PSUs TBH.

I would say a decent 400w PSU should do the job TBH. My Shuttle has a 400w PSU and I was running an overclocked E4500(2.95ghz),4gb of RAM,two hard drives,a dvd rewriter and an overclocked HD3870 for yonks. I now have a Q6600(3ghz) and an overclocked HD4830 and so far it seems OK!!

I think the best strategy would be to tally up the maximum power draw for all your components and see where it leaves you.

If you want to play it safe then you can get an OCZ 500w from Ebuyer for around £46:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135159

This PSU is also usually available for around £27 to £35 on Scan Today Only:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/700W-...201-EPS12v-OEM